Needing is One Thing
by A Fire in the Attic
Summary: "What do you want? Don't think about me. Think about you," Erica says. Derek can't answer.


**Prompt**: Erica stayed after she kissed Derek.

**Word Count**: 1461

**Notes**: Possible titles included "You're the One That I Want" and "Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want" but I felt like naming it after a Grease or Spice Girls song would probably give you the wrong idea. This is a Serious Story (patent pending).

So the actual title comes from a really excellent OkGo song (Needing/Getting) and maybe it doesn't fit but I like it so (no wait i just reread the lyrics okay it works high five!)

* * *

"Why did you do that?"

Derek turns to see Erica watching him, perched on the edge of a train seat. Isaac and Boyd have already gone home, supposedly to do homework.

"Do what?" he asks.

"Kiss me back," she suggests. "Throw me on the ground. Wipe your mouth."  
"I already said I have someone else in mind for you," he says, crossing his arms. He's more powerful than her in every way, but she sees things she shouldn't and it makes him uncomfortable.

"Yeah, I'm supposed to seduce one of them in an effort to get them to join up, whatever," she says, waving a hands, obviously uncaring. "That's not what I meant. Why did you kiss me back if you didn't want me to kiss you?"

Derek shuts his eyes and turns away from her. "You're fifteen. Go home."

She stands to leave, but says quietly, "Derek, what do you want?"

"I want you to seduce Scott," he says.

She doesn't call him out on the lie.

* * *

_Leaving_. She's leaving, with Boyd, the only one of his betas who ever bothered to wonder why they were doing, or at least the one who was best at saying something.

Isaac and Erica are bold, but throw up a fight and the two of them won't argue again. Boyd, though. Boyd keeps him on his toes. He loves all his betas, deep down, and he's glad Isaac's not going, but he'll miss Boyd. Boyd has become his friend.

Erica is still untouchable.

But she's also still standing there. "Boyd won't leave without me," she says when he looks at her strangely. "I need to ask you something."

Derek grunts. He can't look at her, not when she holds a part of his sanity in her hands and it's already torn.

"What do _you_ want, Derek?" she asks.

He shakes his head. He can't say it.

"Because I want things," she says. "I just go out and take them. It doesn't matter what other people want. I want to be safe. I want to be in a pack where I won't be in physical danger and have another seizure. I want to get a license, you know?" She comes to stand next to him. "What do you want? Don't think about me. Think about you."

He turns to face her and says. "I want you to feel safe, Erica. I want you to learn how to drive." It's not a lie, but it's not the truth.

She looks disappointed. "Take some time, Derek," she says. "I'll see you around."

* * *

They're not sure she'll be back.

When Boyd returns to the pack, his memories are twisted and tangled and it takes months before he can be in the same room with Derek alone, and an entire year before they become friends again. He's never exactly sure about it, but he thinks Erica is either dead or far away from Beacon Hills, hiding and forgetting.

But both theories end up wrong.

Erica shows up at the end of the pack's senior year with scars that must come from wolfsbane crossing both of her collarbones in twin slashes. She's halfway feral, refusing to put her fangs back into her mouth until Boyd manages to calm her down with his scent.

Derek recognizes the slashes. They're a calling card for a group of hunters that rotate in the Olympic peninsula. His oldest brother died at their hands when he was visiting a college up there. He doesn't know how Erica escaped, but he's grateful.

She prowls around his apartment on two legs, at least, touching everything and immersing herself in the smell of old pack.

The first night, she sleeps curled up on Derek's stomach. It can't be comfortable, but he's so amazed she's back he doesn't say a word. "I'm glad you're home," he tells her when she wakes up, clawing at imagined foes.

She whines and tucks her head underneath his shirt, face pressed into his abdomen.

"I want you to get better," he tells her.

It's the most honest he's ever been with her, and of course she can't fully appreciate it.

It's an agonizing process, but slowly Erica starts to act more human. She sits on the couch properly and seems to understand what goes on in TV shows. She lets Stiles sit next to her but when she gets tired of his talking, pushes a pillow into his face. "Shhh," she says, and looks delighted when Derek snorts in amusement.

Derek comes home from the store and she says, "Food?" before pawing at the bag with way too much interest for someone not human.

Within a month, she's speaking like she used to, and she only tenses a little when one of her packmates come in the room. "It's weird," she tells Derek one evening. "When I left you were barely speaking with each other and now it's like they all live here."

He shrugs. "A little bit."

"You're happy," she says, wrapping her arms around one of the pillows on the couch. "Is this what you wanted?"

He shrugs. It wasn't really something he'd ever fully thought of. He'd been satisfied with just Laura for so long. When she'd died, he just wanted Scott to be his pack. Scott was so much like Fred, his younger brother, that it hurt to look at him sometimes. Stiles, Lydia, Jackson, and eventually Allison, had just been bonuses. Isaac and Boyd are the ones he picked, so of course he loves having them around, loves that they chose him.

It wasn't about family, it was about protection. But he got a family anyway, and it's nice.

"I got what I wanted," he says. "Plus more."

"But did you get everything you want?" she asks, tilting her head.

He doesn't answer. "I like when you wear your hair up," he says, staring at the messy bun on top of her head. "Smells more like you."

He thinks it will be like all the other times; that she'll let it go and leave him to stew in his aching, or whatever she imagines, but this time she seems more agitated.

"Stop it, Derek," she says. "You can't deflect. Right now we're all safe, right? What do you _want_?"

"I have it," he says, refusing.

"But what else?" she demands, standing up and crossing the room to get into his personal space.

It's not the closest she's been (_the kiss, the sleeping, the bite_) but it feels different. She's so in control right now and he's slipping.

"Erica," he pleads, trying to step back.

She grabs his hands and tugs him to a halt. "What do you want?" she hisses. "Tell me or I'll never let it go."

Derek opens his mouth, shuts it. Considers tugging his hands out of hers and pinning her to the ground, forcing her to submit, reminding her that he's the alpha. He should do that. It's what Laura would have done to him.

He doesn't. He stares at her, heart racing, waiting for her to get tired of him and say she's leaving again, but south this time. He could tell her to go to a city, where packs don't hold territory, where an omega would be safe.

"Derek," she says.

"Tell me," she whispers, leaning in.

"Please," she whispers, lips brushing the pulsing vein in his neck.

He can't say it, but he crumples anyway, leaning into her and hugging her tightly. _You_, he thinks. _Always you_.

She must know what this means, He didn't kiss her but the intent had to be clear. _Had_ to be. No werewolf ever would have allowed for that vulnerability, letting another wolf put their teeth so close to their throat. Unless the wolf was trusted, was loved, was wanted.

_Needed_.

But she doesn't leave. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, fingers playing in the soft baby hair at the back of his neck, nose nuzzling the dip of his collarbone. "Don't push me away again," she says into his chest. "I want you to hold me."

Derek wants it, too. He thinks about what Erica said before she left, about taking what he wants and not worrying about other people. It's not necessarily _right_, he thinks, but Erica says she wants this. He wants this. So…

He holds her tighter.

* * *

They never break Erica of sleeping with her head resting on his stomach, and eventually, he buys a bigger bed. She tries to apologize, blushing as she stares at her feet (she's wearing flip flops, the only shoes she can bear to wear for any amount of time) but Derek shakes his head. "I want this," he says.

(It only took a week to say he wanted her, too.)


End file.
